Funny Business

Here's a bit from an article in the Guardian newspaper reporting on some Canadian psychological research:

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours," they write.

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

I've always found it odd that people with a "holier than thou" attitude can be quite mean. I was not aware of "compensatory ethics".

Here is the original study.

If you are curious about "applied ethics" and contemporary issues in "compensatory ethics". Here is a dissertation on the topic by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon:

CBSSports.com contacted me last week. I assume they thought of me because I'm so sporty. They have a web service that lets you watch live college basketball games, on demand, during March Madness. The web page wisely includes a Boss Button that allows viewers to switch to a business-looking screen when footsteps approach. They asked if I would be willing to design a page that cleverly looks like legitimate work from a medium distance, and yet is clearly a joke up close.

My first reaction was one of righteous indignation. How could they expect me to be a party to wholesale theft of employee productivity? In an era when bankers and CEOs are looting the country, it was time for an honest man to come forward and say, "Enough!"

At some point, a dollar amount was mentioned, and I realized that the person who manufactures a hammer isn't at fault if someone uses it to slay a suburban family who, for all you know, had it coming. All I would be doing is designing a simple web page; I wouldn't be forcing anyone to watch incredibly exciting basketball games during work while getting paid at the same time. I call that free will, which I have been told is a good thing.

I agreed to the deal, but a tiny voice in the back of my mind kept pointing out that a hammer has many legitimate uses, whereas a Boss Button can only be used for evil. I knew that this tiny voice was either coming from my conscience, or from my dog who had suddenly learned to speak. I checked my e-mail to remind myself how much I was getting paid, yelled at the dog to stop talking, and got to work.

If you're curious about the outcome, check it out at mmod.ncaa.com. And don't blame me if the stock market crashes in March. If I hadn't designed that Boss Button page, someone else would have. And it might have been Ziggy.

As you can tell, Dilbert... I mean Scott... is a victim of "compensatory ethics".